The inspector tossed the letter to the sergeant, who, having read it, remarked, laconically: “Ten to one, there’s a woman in the case.”
The newspapers were very busy for many days after Raife’s coat and hat had been found on the cliffs at Cromer.
Again Doctor Malsano sat in his den, and there was an expression of triumph on his face. Gilda Tempest was there, and the doctor spoke soothingly.
“Gilda, we are approaching the end. You played your part very well the other day at the wedding ceremony.”
Gilda shuddered. The full force of the crime that she had been compelled to commit, confronted her.
Case-hardened, and soaked in the jaundiced atmosphere of criminality, the doctor continued to smile.
“Ha! ha! Remington thought he would escape. Your father killed him and he killed your father. But I am here, and his son shall not escape. Gilda, you must complete the ruin of that young fool. The vendetta is not complete.”
Gilda writhed as the old man murmured these hateful words. She loved Raife, and, in her sane moments, would have given more than her life for him. The baneful influence of her uncle had led her to wield a fateful power over the man she loved.
The scene that followed the disappearance of the bridegroom on the wedding-day in Mayfair does not admit of description.